Essentially, enterprise customers can deploy various Oracle Engineered Systems (i.e. Exadata databases and Exalytics in-memory solutions) at their data centers in tangent to the IaaS layer of the Oracle Cloud.

Customers can also deploy this platform to a third-party data center in lieu of an on-premise setup.

Oracle proposed that the twist now is they can do this for a monthly fee while being able to add and subtract processing capacity as they see fit.

Juan Loaiza, senior vice president of Oracle's Software Development unit, explained further in the announcement on Tuesday morning, boasting that this option marks the first time customers can deploy Oracle's Engineered Systems on-premise and behind a firewall for a monthly fee. He added that customers will only pay for peak processing power "when they need it."

Oracle also stipulated that this scheme is different from simply leasing the hardware because the monthly fees are published (and therefore, predictable) while the cost of hardware leases involve interest rates that can vary over the course of time."

For the budget-minded, it is important to read the fine print. As this is a monthly subscription, Oracle asserted that there are no "upfront capital expenditures," but rather the operating costs will be spread out "over time."

While there is some customer support services included, the subscription also doesn't include the software licensing fees required for Exadata, Exalogic, and other Oracle software products.

More importantly, there is a minimum three-year contract requirement. At the end of that period, customers have the option to cancel and return the hardware to Oracle or extend the contract to a fourth or fifth year, in quarterly increments, at a discounted rate.

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive based in San Francisco, covering business and enterprise technology for ZDNet, CNET and SmartPlanet.
She has previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish Americ...
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